Have some more American RAEG!

[vulgarweed]

http://www.servicemembersunited.org/survey

This is the survey the Pentagon sent out to service members regarding DADT.

It basically boils down to 32 pages of variations on the theme of:

Q. I will treat other human beings in my unit as human beings if I find out they are gay/lesbian, true/false?

A. (multiple choice):

1. Yes

2. No

3. Maybe, but ICK! I won't like it.

4. I'm too ignorant to know or care.


Yes, I've read the whole thing all the way through, and I would definitely quit any job who thought this line of questioning was appropriate in any way. Yes, I get that in the military it's different, you sign up for a contract and you have to take orders...so isn't it long past time someone with authority stood up and said GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?

(And if the Pentagon is so worried about the possibility of people feeling uncomfortable about folks maybe getting checked out in the showers...maybe they might want to do something about the widespread and well-documented rape of female soldiers by male soldiers allegedly on their same side? Cause I can't think of anything more damaging to unit cohesion than that.)

Comments

[sarken.livejournal.com]

GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?

This is pretty much how DADT should be handled, in my silly civilian opinion. You are in the military. You take orders. It is not a democracy; you do not get to vote via survey on whether this law should be repealed. You do what you are told, and if you are told to deal with it, you deal with it. God damn it, people.

Have some more American RAEG!

[notlefthanded.livejournal.com]

Fucking word.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE

Not sure about your army, but soldiers are people might still be news to a lot of armies around the world, so this might indeed be a bit over their heads ... :(

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

There's a whole bunch of these things around my city at the moment and I'm loving it. Perhaps they could put a few outside the Pentagon?

Repost for muffed html. Sorry

[fiatincantatum.livejournal.com]

*wonders how much it would cost to plant one of those in every billboard in the US*

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

It's not quit the same, but you can download your own and put it over your least favourite local ad board.

[quantum-witch.livejournal.com]

Omg. Stonewall happened in NYC, and it's only being posted in the UK?

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Stonewall is a UK lobbying group originally set up in 1989, by Gandalf amongst other hobbits elves and men people.

It was created to oppose section 28 of the education act, a vile, vile clause which went:

The amendment stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship".

and even more heniously, voted onto the statute books by the then Tory government. It was named after the Stonewall Inn but it's functions are uk based lobbying.

[quantum-witch.livejournal.com]

Ah, didn't realise there was a connection. That's cool.

Holy crap though, that Act... what utter bastards, what... oh hell, my brain can't come up with words strong enough to express how sickening that is.

[maelipstick.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Fortunately it was repealed in 2003, but not before it had done a lot of damage in getting school support groups for lesbian and gay students shut down - pretty much leaving bullying to go on unchecked. Hence the anti-bullying campaigns for schools.

And now the bastards that voted for it are back. :(

[thistle-verse.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And the thing is, I think it would be so easy to just do it. The military integrated by order and while I'm not saying there is no racism, it was probably the smoother than any sector of civilian society. I believe we could see the same thing happen with repealing DADT, if we would stop this kind of bullshit.

The other things that stand out to me:

1. We're already moving toward more personal privacy. The brand new barracks our BN is moving into are two person apartments, with individual bedrooms sharing a kitchen and bath.

2. If a gay soldier propositions you and you are not gay, what happened to being a grown up and saying "no thanks" just like you would do if someone of the opposite sex who you weren't interested in did the same? Come on, people.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the thing. I see often see the racial integration of the US military as something that, while of course isn't perfect, largely can be said to have worked pretty well. And it was progressive for the time. And of course there was a lot of white-supremacist grumbling, but so fucking what? Who cared what those people thought? That's how homophobes need their "concerns" handled, IMO--with all the respect they deserve, which is none.

People in the armed forces are supposed to be brave. Don't all the ideals of courage in tough situations fall apart if grown men curl up into little whiny fetal balls of terror at the very idea of the possibility of some dude checking them out? I suspect there's a lot of projection and fear of other men treating such guys the same way they treat women.

[quantum-witch.livejournal.com]

FUCK YES. I've thought this before, but you put it so much better.

[apricot-tree.livejournal.com]

"GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?" Since this is more or less what happened when the services integrated, I don't think this is out of the realm of possibility. And no, it didn't get rid of the racism. But it made it very apparent that you had better keep those sorts of view to yourself and not act on them.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

That's my feeling exactly. The racial integration of the military was progressive for the time, too. And I think it helped a lot of people coming into the military with racist views get more enlightened.

I have pretty deeply ingrained anti-authoritarian feelings, but top-down decisions made by people with guts aren't always bad.

[hsavinien.livejournal.com]

YES, THIS.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, I get that in the military it's different, you sign up for a contract and you have to take orders...so isn't it long past time someone with authority stood up and said GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?

Expecting soldiers to act like grown adults? Naaw, that's going a bit too far!

[amberdiceless.livejournal.com]

And if the Pentagon is so worried about the possibility of people feeling uncomfortable about folks maybe getting checked out in the showers...

As an aside to this, I am continually amazed that the military minds who think nothing of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on war machines even their own commanders say they don't need are apparently unwilling to cough up $2 for a shower curtain.